


Hola, Magisterito!

by NorroenDyrd



Series: Amabilis Insania [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Battle Couple, Cute Kids, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Flashbacks, Magisterium (Dragon Age), Not Canon Compliant, Rescue Missions, Slave Trade, Slavery, Zevran Arainai Backstory, Zevran Arainai in Dragon Age: Inquisition
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-03-11 22:35:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13533948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: On their mission to cure the Calling, Warden Nella Amell and her husband venture into the mysterious and dangerous land of Tevinter, intending to explore Minrathous' vast library. However, they are sidetracked from their quest by getting themselves involved in freeing slaves and smuggling them out of the country on Isabela and Merrill's new ship, the Sea Halla. When chased by guards on one such mission, Nella seeks shelter in a random building that turns out to be the Magisterium. As she stumbles into a session in progress, her interest is piqued by a speech on the Venatori cult and the southern Inquisition - all the more so since she senses the Blight in the speaker. Without further ado, she decides to 'adopt' the young man; in the meanwhile, Zevran, who has been covering her escape, makes the same decision about a young Venatori, who was recruited for his Somniari abilities but, when prodded a little, does not feel all that thrilled about Corypheus or his fellows (except perhaps Calpernia).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is to become an addendum to the Alexius/Inquisitor series, where Felix was initially supposed to be dead. I have now ruled otherwise.

The white dot of the sun shimmers high at the apparent curve of the pale, washed-out bluish dome of the sky. The ultimate dome as it were; the tallest of all the other domes that line the horizon, peeling gilt flashing now and again in the sun’s steady, mercilessly bright light. The heat that pulses from this malicious white dot turns the air into a blazing, rippling river, and the few shadows that still remain under its onslaught seem meek and scared, clinging to the bases of the palm-like carved pillars that support the sculpted arch, chipped and cracking in many places like so much of the city’s masonwork, with the faces of the stately mage figures that adorn it worn down to smooth, featureless stubs plastered over their robe collars.  
  
  
  
This crumbling stone structure marks the entrance to a public marketplace - which is still teeming with an agitated, murmuring crowd, even despite the heat. A new batch of living goods has been shipped into the capital for auctioning, and lined up on a platform opposite the arch, panting, sweating attendants scurrying around them, taking body measurements, pulling their jaws loose with a violent hand thrust to display the quality of their teeth, running tests to see if they are literate (not a very popular choice among buyers, usually, but as of late, someone has been persistently buying off slaves that can read and write).  
  
  
  
Quite a lively business, trading in such goods; and today, like on any other day, there is no shortage of those who are interested - and those who have just come to gawk. The latter are the ones who make most of the commotion; the actual serious buyers remain unmoving, like the once gold-coated sharp-hooded statues that line the galleries behind their backs. These men and women carry themselves with assurance and such cold dignity that their very breath seems to freeze the air around them… Or that could just be because quite a few of them are mages, cradling dryly crackling orbs of blue and silver enchanted ice under their broad, flowing cloaks. Not members of the great Altus houses by blood - but trusted servants and advisors all the same, delegated by their masters to shop for new slaves while the Alti themselves gather for the upcoming session at the Magisterium.  
  
  
  
Time and again, when the chief attendant - a pot-bellied man in a white tunic that blends into blotches dark grey under his armpits - raises an auctioneer’s hammer in his tiny hand, puffy and with several folds at the wrist as if he were a grotesque oversized infant, one of the robed buyers indicates their willingness to meet the prize for the goods, by flourishing a jewelled, long-nailed hand, or a scroll, or a walking stick, or whichever other object they might be holding. On this particular occasion, however, any if their attempts to place a bid are promptly overridden by either of the two men who definitely do not look like the market’s regulars.  
  
  
  
One is tall and broad, his figure resembling a huge rectangle thanks to a flowing black robe. To complete the geometrical analogy, the rectangle is topped by a cone: such is the shape of the old-fashioned elongated hood, mimicking some of the portrayals of the past archons, which conceals the first outsider’s face and makes him all the more imposing.  
  
  
  
As turned out fairly soon after the trading began, he belongs to that very group of mysterious buyers with a bizarre preference for literate slaves: he only springs to attention when the chief attendant drags forward an auction item that has skill with letters. Hardly does the slave shuffle forward, with their head bowed down out of respect towards the scrutinizing crowd of free citizens, when the coned hood flicks his wrist, gloved fingers brushing against one another in a leisurely half-snap; this sets off a small, thread-like jet of scarlet sparks, which float upwards, drawing the atrendants’ gaze.  
  
  
  
A bit more dramatic than just waving a cane or a scroll - and more effective as well. Especially since the sparks burn brighter and brighter the higher the mystery bidder raises the price, making any other competitors (the few that do not mind the inconvenience of a slave being too educated for their own good) purse their lips and withdraw. When that happens, the outsider lets out a satisfied little huff under his hood - and as celebration, the (now quite broad and silk-like) spark thread turns into a veritable fountain of ghostly red light… Which inevitably gets extinguished but a few moments later, with a disappointed-sounding faint sizzle, when the second outsider flourishes a curved sheathed dagger and raises the price to a sum he cannot afford.  
  
  
  
That other man, though also wrapped from head to toe in black (which cannot be pleasant in all this heat), is smaller and lighter-built, and uses a mask rather than a hood to keep his features. It is a peculiar, metallically glinting thing, shaped to resemble the sharp beak of a bird. An Orlesian, then? Not at all surprising; these haughty cheese breeders may scowl at the ‘faithless Tevinter’ in public, but those of them with… specific tastes would certainly know that the Imperium has the finest publicly accessible slave markets to satisfy them. Now, importing the goods back into his home country might present a tiny sliver of a problem; but that is his concern, not the traders’. And he gives off the impression that he knows what he is doing. Or does he?  
  
  
  
Unlike the unknown Serah Cone, this outsider bids on each and every slave, and does not back down, his dagger sheath flying up in his grasp again and again and again, until he is the only buyer remaining.  
  
  
  
About the first half a dozen times, this does not seem too suspicious - but as the trading progresses, the attendants’ oily smiles droop into grimaces of distrust, and the crowd begins to stir with a far greater ferocity, as if the masked slave shopper were a boulder that has plummeted down into the sea and is raising ever-mounting waves.  
  
  
  
Out of everyone in the market, the cone is most incensed. With each of the chief attendant’s nasally exclamations of 'Item Number Seven, Elven Male, thirty two years old, excellent working condition, sold for ten gold to the gentleman in the mask! Item Number Nine, Elven Female, twenty years old, high physical quality, sold for twenty five gold to the gentleman in the mask! Item Number Eleven, Human Female, nine years old, no utilitarian use other than paying off her father’s debts, sold for five gold seventy silver to the gentleman in the mask!’, the breathing noises coming from beneath the hood grow increasingly hoarse, almost strangled… And after the successful sale of Item Number Fifteen (a human woman with a broad, weather-beaten face and large ruddy hands resting meekly on her stomach, whose starting price was not very high due to her being overweight and missing a few teeth), the outstripped outsider cannot stand it any longer. The cone-topped rectangle turns into a massive inky letter W as he throws up his arms and bellows as the top of his lungs,  
  
  
  
'By the Elder One, will you stop stealing slaves from under me! Do you even have money to pay for them all?!’  
  
  
  
'By the Elder One, hmm?’ the other man purrs in a very interested tone, titling up his mask to reveal a deeply tanned, slightly angular, and very obviously elven face, with three black tattoo lines, one short, two long, curling along his cheekbone.  
  
  
  
'Is that not the signature phrase of a member of an officially denounced cult?’ he continues teasingly, an Antivan accent running deep through his question and turning it into a mocking song. 'Do watch your language, my friend! And oh… I was not actually intending to pay. The plan was to create a distraction and escape with all these fine people - and you have given me the perfect distraction’.


	2. Chapter 2

If before the cone-headed cultist accidentally revealed his identity, the crowd in the market square was like a heaving sea, then afterwards, it rushes away from him and the unmasked Antivan elf like an ebbing tide. A tide that also combines the said ebbing with quite a few gasps and squeaks of shock.  
  
  
  
Some market visitors squeeze past their stumbling fellows, elbowing at each other violently and squashing quite a few feet into purplish swollen oblongs - and once they have reached the arch, they bolt out of the square and take off into the side alleys, raising a cloud of pale, chalk-like dust. Others only retreat a short distance, and stay to watch what will happen next - still restless and wound up like terse springs in some clockwork contraption… But unable to look away from what promises to be quite a sight - rivalling even the most heated bidding on an expensive slave.  
  
  
  
In a matter of moments, as the crowd scattered, the Antivan and the cultist have been left standing face to face in an arena-like circle of the lumpy, cracking pavement. The elf has parted his lips in a cheeky grin, scanning the restless onlookers with his peripheral vision, and then yanked the dagger he has been using to place his bids out of its sheath.  
  
  
  
The flash of steel in the sun has been white and hot, carving through the shimmering air like a curved claw. With that, the first move has been made, and the elf is more than ready for the second and the third and the fourth.  
  
  
  
'Now, cariña,’ he tosses a calm, almost casual command somewhere into the crowd, his gaze now fully fixed on the cultist, who is kneading his red magical threads into a more powerful spell.  
  
  
  
'Take care of our new friends! This fellow is on me’.  
  
  
  
With almost all eyes drinking up the unfolding duel between the audacious dagger-wielding elf and an apparent member of the Venatori (with such greed, too, as if they were being offered a draught of icy-cold water to put out the blaze of the unblinking sun), hardly anyone notices that yet another hooded figure - though clad in blue rather than in black - has leapt into action, flexing a set of narrow shoulders and striding swiftly towards the platform, where the slaves flock together, left unsupervised by the attendants, who have, for the most part, run off to call the guards.  
  
  
  
The eyes of the 'living goods’, once lowered submissively, barrly visible in the shadow of bruised eyelids, are now huge with confusion, glinting against their grimy, sweat-greased faces; and their bare feet, with jutting ankle bones that are crisscrossed by scabs from shackle wounds old and new, rub awkwardly against one another in agitation.  
  
  
  
When the stranger that the Antivan called 'cariña’, or 'darling’, climbs the platform, many of the slaves - the elves especially - flinch away, like they fully expect this small and skinny person, nonetheless made intimidating in their eyes by the very fact that they wear no shackles and carry a spellcaster’s staff, to produce a whip (perhaps even woven out of gold and purple magefire) and rain blistering agony upon the jutting ridges of their spines. And the stranger does bring their staff forward with a practice twirl - but no angry, searing destructive energy ever bursts from its carved upper tip, which is shaped like some curious animal, half lion, half eagle, its weathered wings spread out wide and its beak open in an eternal noiseless screech.  
  
  
  
And from the back of that beak, like vaporous breath on one of those nippy mornings completely alien to this sweltering tropical part of Thedas, comes a milky-white gust, which trails down and spreads across the platform, splitting into several creamy, slightly glowing clouds, each softly cushioning the scabby feet of every individual man and woman and child brought here to be sold. After the clouds settle, under the fixed, glassy stares of the slaves, their glow intensifies, the pure white breaking into many shades waves that rise and cladh and froth over their heads, moulding into gigantic likenesses of soap bubbles that lock each slave in, shielding them from the broiling chaos in the square.  
  
  
  
'There,’ the figure announces simply, out of breath with the effort of spellcasting but still sounding very cheerful. 'These barriers will protect you as we make it to the harbour’.  
  
  
  
'H…h…harbour?’ the so-called 'Item Number Seven croaks, his voice sounding a bit… rusty, like he has not given it much use. Well, no surprise there: a labourer like him is probably not allowed to say much, save for a diligent 'Yes, serah’ to the overseer when given instructions for the day.  
  
  
  
The figure has already jumped back off the platform, the hem of their bright blue robes whirling into a semblance of petals of some lush, fantastical flower.  
  
  
  
'Quite right,’ they confirm, glancing back at the slaves and beckoning them to follow. 'Come on, we’d best not linger! While everyone is focused on my husband, I will take you away from here. Our friends are waiting on their ship, The Sea Halla, ready to set sail when you embark’.  
  
  
  
Item Number Nine claps her hands against her mouth.  
  
  
  
White and dimpled, they are not raw with work like those of so many of her brethren - but that merely means that she has been groomed to be a… slightly more refined tool. A tool nonetheless. Of a high physical quality.  
  
  
  
'The Sea Halla! But that… That’s just an urban legend!’  
  
  
  
And so it does seem, to the elven 'servi’ who do not stop telling it, in hushed tones to keep the masters from hearing, with their voices brittle with emotion and their pupils lost beyond a veil of dreamy glimmer - but at the same time, make a point of convincing themselves that it is not really true. That it is just a dream-like distraction from the everyday drudgery; a vision that they can lose themselves in, like some of their masters like losing themselves in the sweet, dizzying pipe vapours - but that they must, inevitably, snap out of. Surely, there is no actual ship that glides across the sea, with the graceful, smooth speed of a halla galloping through the bright fields in the fairy world if the Salish. Surely, there is no Rivaini pirate queen, dark and beautiful and decked in gold from head to toe. Surely, there is no consort to that queen - an elven lover, slender as a young tree sapling and crowned with a wreath of fragrant flowers that never wilt. Surely, there are no daring adventures that these two women have, darting from city to city along the coast, their vessel evasive and unstoppable, ghost-like even; there are no impossible missions to steal slaves from their masters and set them free.  
  
  
  
Surely, this… this is a legend - it has to be!  
  
  
  
And yet, there the stranger is - drawing back their hood, to reveal a pair of warm hazel eyes, and smiling.  
  
  
  
'Oh no, The Sea Halla is not a legend. It is very, very real. And you should be hurrying to get onboard!.. My name is Nella, by the way. You can all tell me your names - your real names - while we race to the harbour! Now - one, two, three!’  
  
  
  
Nella.  
  
  
  
Nella Amell. The name of a very, very particular woman. A woman that, though she denies being a legend, still is one.


	3. Chapter 3

None of the slave market’s regulars ever visited Ferelden at the time of the Fifth Blight (and those who did, never made it alive out of the Denerim alienage). But if those who did so were here at this moment, and chanced to look away from the Antivan and the cultist to catch a glimpse of the procession of slaves, scurrying along inside their barrier balls, they might have recognized the young mage woman leading them off. Or… Or on second thought, maybe not.  
  
  
For Nella Amell looked a bit… different back when she was travelling down the muddy, rain-lashed highways that carved their way across the Fereldan countryside; and through the mossy mazes built out of the mighty, swaying tree trunks in the Brescillian Forest, where the air was always murky and humid and smelled of rotting wood and damp soil; and across the time-gnawed dwarven bridges spanning the leering chasms of the Deep Roads, which were lit up from below by what looked like a slow, pulsing torrent of lava but actually was a steadily marching column of darkspawn with reddish torches clasped in their clammy, corpse-like claws.  
  
  
During those days, this blundering runaway Circle Mage, who had been conscripted into the Wardens and would come to be known as the Hero of Ferelden, was timid and quiet and mortally terrified of her own shadow. Her heart-shaped face, sallow and blotchy from having spent all her life locked in behind impenetrable stone walls, away from fresh air and sunlight, was always half-obscured by a veil of long, lacklustre, slightly fraying blonde hair - which she, indeed, even pulled together like a curtain when she was feeling particularly embarrassed. And what little of her features that could be seen was perpetually frozen up in a look of someone on the verge of fainting.  
  
  
Now, however, she does not try to hide away behind her hair: once her hood is thrown back, her face remains fully open, sporting a deep, slightly copper-tinted tan, which darkens into a blobby cloud of freckles along the bridge of her nose - the lingering remnant of that time, years ago, when her skin was scorched by the sun for the very first time. And her hair itself has been cropped close to her skull, leaving only a thin, bristling layer that fully exposes her ears (one of which is pierced by a smooth gold earring) and a soft, sun-bleached fringe over her forehead.  
  
  
Her expression, too, has changed. No longer a mortified, lost little sheep that has ventured outside its Templar-guarded pen into the great unknown (quite against her will, too, pulled into a dangerous adventure by a friend who tried so hard to turn from a sheep to a lion by using blood magic), she has now taken the role of a shepherd. Racing away from the market, down a tiny side street that starts at its back end, opposite the main arch, and will supposedly serve as a shortcut to the harbour, she looks back at the slaves now and again, and gently spurs them on with an assuring gesture, and smiles with the radiant sincerity that makes even the most weary stragglers feel at ease, a vivacious spring appearing in their step and their bleak gazes lighting up with the inklings of hope that the tale of the Sea Halla is, indeed, true.  
  
  
She charts the course to her goal so confidently, navigates the narrow ancient alleyways on Minrathous with such determination, that one would never even guess that she is the same Nella Amell that once got lost in Denerim’s slums, still staggering and woozy from the rum-fuelled threesome aboard her sea captain friend’s ship (a different one; the one that came before the Sea Halla and would later be swallowed by the waves) and walked right into a trap set for her by the Antivan Crows. Now, she might as well be one of such Crows herself - the way she darts into the street corners that are most sheltered from view, and never once missteps or stumbles as she cuts a steep turn, always finding a foothold on the uneven pavement, and slowing down only to make certain that all the slaves are still there, still flocking after her, still safe and sound.  
  
  
The only thing that remains the same are her eyes, wide and long-lashed, clear as the light that streams through the dappled woodland foliage.  
  
  
The very same eyes that once looked, with a moist glint of pity, at the bloodied and bound assassin that had failed to kill her and left himself at her mercy.  
  
  
The very same eyes that reflected the silver-specked blackness of the sky over the modest little wilderness camp, absorbing the shimmering starlight as the blushing young Warden listened to the over-the-top tales spun by the said assassin, and giggled at his dramatic recitals of ridiculously dirty poetry… While the assassin himself caught his hand wandering subconsciously towards his chest and neck, trying to placate the puzzling inner ache that he was developing, tinged with a sort of poignant sweetness that he was not certain he was allowed to, or deserved to, experience.  
  
  
The very same eyes that, at some point, stopped shutting in an instinctive, primal terror when looking upon the monsters of the world - and instead met their gaze with an intent, searching inquisitiveness, trying to understand them; even if those were the most revolting, deformed beings, like a decaying, rancid, involuntarily twitching corpse inhabited by a spirit, or an ancient magister transformed by the Blight into an inhumanly tall, clawed creature with a gilded half-faced mask hiding the warped folds of his dark-grey skin.  
  
  
These eyes, kind and sincere and caringly watchful, scan the figures of the slaves in their rolling barrier bubbles, occasionally flashing with magic when the spell needs to be renewed… And then, suddenly, widen in alarm - for at one point, just as the Warden turns back to check on her companions, she discovers that they have stopped in their tracks, more than a few bending their knees and raising their arms helplessly over their heads, cowering before a wheezing guard that has just caught up with them, sweat dripping off his swarthy face onto his spike-adorned metal breastplate.  
  
  
‘Halt!’ he wheezes, taking a broad blade swing at one of the slaves’ barriers in an attempt to dispel it. 'I have reports that a southerner… of your description… has been… Making… use… of the… disturbance… In the market… To… smuggle away… property… That does not…’  
  
  
He his probably been intending to say 'property that does not belong to you’ - but is prevented from uttering a single word more. For when his steel finally hits the barrier, instead of shattering, the soapy spell bubble only strengthens, growing opaque and emitting a pulse of many-shaded magical energy that knocks the guard back.  
  
  
Sent flying up the cramped stone passage that he came from, he whizzes into the air for a moment or so, in a frantic fleshy blur of flapping limbs - and the Warden, in the meanwhile, preps the pavement for his landing.  
  
  
With a frown creasing her forehead, she flares her nostrils a little bit and catches at her own lower lip in a determined bite, concentrating on bringing her staff down the way she did on the market platform. When her mage weapon’s tip stabs the flaking masonwork, green lines begin to race from it, intertwining and curving into a complex circular glyph. It is complete at the precise point when the guard’s bottom touches the pavement, right in the burning green circle’s middle. The contact causes the air over the glyph to ripple some ten times stronger than the heat ever did, while an invisible force pushes the guard out of the circle, setting off another comical, flailing flight… Which ends when the guard hits the head of the small column of his fellow spiky-armoured patrolmen that has apparently just taken a turn into the same alleyway. Either by sheer coincidence or because they have been hot on the trail of the 'stolen property’ the whole time, and the Warden’s Crow impression has not proved as stealthy as she has thought (after all, much as she tried to avoid detection, the barrier bubbles are not exactly inconspicuous).  
  
  
The flying guard topples the rest of the column like a ball tossed in some manner of grotesque bowling game. This sows confusion in their ranks, and for a while they are incapable of doing anything except grunt and squawk in half-strangled voices, and shove at one another as they pile up in the narrow gap between two opposing buildings like a stack of dirty laundry. But, of course, they will not stay like this forever, and the more dexterous ones are already beginning to disentangle themselves from the common heap - whereas the slaves have barely bulged, too stunned by what has just happened, and perhaps already despondently resigning to the thought that their escape attempt failed, and that the Sea Halla will forever remain a lagend. A fever dream flashing before their eyes as they are being flogged for their atrocious crime.  
  
  
Still, the Warden does try to buy them some time before the guards clamber to their feet. Sucking in her stomach, raising her staff over her head and standing on tiptoe, she pushes her way along the tiny alley, past the barrier bubbles, until she finds herself between the slaves and the guards.  
  
  
When that is done, she lowers her beast-adorned weapon and grips it more comfortably, tracing a long horizontal line through the air with its silently roaring upper tip. Mirroring her motion, a row of glittering frost crystals spouts out of the pavement, blocking the guards’ way and keeping them from reaching the slaves (at least until the greedy white sun eats the ice away) - but also leaving her on the other side.  
  
  
'Go,’ she breathes, softly but insistently, before the ice wall grows too tall for the slaves to see her face.  
  
  
'You are almost there. You can even see the sea from here’.  
  
  
And so they can indeed: a ribbon of deep blue, with what seems like unbearably bright white and gold glitter scattered over it, peeking in broad snatches here and there in between the nearest handful of buildings.  
  
  
'Go. Isabela will meet you at the harbour entrance. And then you won’t have to be afraid. You won’t have to put up with being called “property” any more. Don’t fret about anything else. I will take care of this’.  
  
  
The last thing they all see, before the ice barrier outgrows the Warden’s height and they have to tentatively turn their backs on it and continue their journey alone, is a reassuring smile, and the ray-like lines in the corners of the hazel eyes that even the Blight has left unchanged.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written as pure self-indulgence because I abandoned this story like a year ago and probably lost the 1.5 readers it had.

Just as expected, it takes but a few moments before the searing white sun shoots its first spearing ray into Nella's barrier, turning its jagged outlines into wobbly, leaking smudges. The conjured ice spikes sag in on themselves, with round glistening lumps growing on them like blisters, and a large puddle spreading at their unsteady base, dark against the dirty-white, parched, dusty pavement.  
  
'Wetting yourself already, eh, outsider?' one of the guards chortles, already firm on his feet, flexing his slightly sore sword arm - a motion that is mirrored by most of the others, who are sporting a few scabs and bruises and armour dents here and there, but have otherwise recovered from the blast of that green glyph.  
  
'Wait till you face the charge for stealing valuables from Tevinter lords!'  
  
Nella squirms at the word 'valuables' - but then, eyes askance, she glances past her ruined barrier, which the sun is just finishing up, digging into it ravenously as if it were a scoop of ice-cream (shapelessly blobby for having been licked at multiple times). And what she sees makes the grimace of distaste fade, replaced by a small but still very, very obvious smile of triumph.  
  
The spell bubbles are rolling down the street to the harbour, gaining ever more speed, like pearls from a string that has snapped apart. Just as the slaver chains have snapped, no longer having their hold over the people - people, not valuables, not property! - inside those barriers.  
  
They are going to make it. They are going to board the Sea Halla, living out the impossible, vision-like tale of daring rescue and majestic voyage into the sunset (oh, the pirate queen's consort always fusses about making the vessel's departure look as majestic as possible - 'Look, look how happy it makes them feel, Isabela! Could you... Shift a little to the left, so that the sun shines in your hair, and let it loose maybe? Yes, thank you, thank you!').    
  
They are going to make it. They are going to be free. If someone keeps their pursuers busy a little bit longer.  
  
The guard that has made that rude joke has already raised his blade, blaring white high in the air, curved like a seagull's wing. Its downward journey would have been brief and measured as precisely as the steady flaps of a soaring sea bird; it would have surely met the round, half-shaven head of the southern mage, cracking it into with the dry noise of walnut shell popping. Surely! She seems so distracted, after all; her mind has been fully absorbed by following the progress of the little barrier pearls that are about to meet the glittery ribbon of the sea. So, so fully absorbed! Or... Or has it?  
  
The blade makes its strike, appearing to melt into a white feathery blur - but no walnut-cracking comes. When the steel flashes a hair's breadth away from her skull, Nella's blue-robed figure grows transparent, melting away like her protective ice wall - and then leaps away from the guard, maneuvering past him and his frustrated, huffing fellows in less time than it takes for their drumming, anger-fueled hearts to pause between two rapid beats. And with every fraction of an inch it travels, the see-through blue silhouette leaves behind a copy of itself, which lingers for a moment for the confused guards to slash at, never hitting anything but thin air, and then disperses into an ephemeral puff, azure mixed with chalky white, like the clouds that keep attempting to form in the burning sky dome but never last long enough to bring any relieve from the heat.  
  
Thus carried along by her cloudy spell - Fade Step, some mages call it - Nella races along a very elaborate loop, making sure that any persistent attempts to catch her make the guards as dizzy as possible. When she finally materializes, it is in the middle of a long streak of sand that has been tracked up the street by the many, many boots shuffling on their business from the sea shore and back again. Hardly does her silhouette blink back into solid form, when she bends down, claws deep into the sand to gather up as big a handful as she can hold within her fingers - and hurtles the sand right into the eyes of her stumbling, groggy would-be captors.  
  
'Good old rogue trick never fails,' she chuckles under her breath, before another Fade Step places her back at the puddle that was once her barrier. 'Thank you for your lessons, cariño'.  
  
With the guards disoriented again, blind and whimpering like ever so many newborn mabari (no, the furry sweethearts do not deserve such a comparison), all that is left for her to do is to gather up her flapping robes, jump gracefully over the puddle, and sculpt a nice big thrumming orb out of the purple mage fire sparkles at her fingertips. Once it is finished, she tosses it up lightly as if she were playing a casual ball game; it hangs in place, held up by its own arcane energy, spinning and shimmering and spitting out an occasional pure-white lightning bolt that, when reflected in the puddle below, is warped into the image of an ever-coiling, bright-scaled serpent.  
  
'Please do not try to follow me along path,' Nella tells the guards as she begins to back up in the same direction where the slaves have escaped. For what is probably meant to be a taunt or a threat, her tone is far too sincere. Almost like she is a concerned parent trying to talk some sense into careless children.  
  
'Lightning and water do not go together very well. If you cross the puddle, you will get hurt. A necessary protection, you understand: I really, really don't want you to catch my new friends. Please wait until the spell fades, or find the long way round. Have a nice day now! And please stop treating human and elven beings like they were... I don't know, water pitchers or footstools, all right?'  
  
With that, she waves at the guards - which is interpreted as mockery, and met with a spluttering chorus of curses. But she can barely hear those, for a third Fade Step has already propelled her a bit closer to the harbour.  
  
It ought to be a smooth journey from here on in - but when, yet again, she solidifies after dashing a  down alleyway after alleyway in spectral form, she freezes midway, drawing herself up with startled tension, and slouches down again, exhaling.  
  
'Not yet,' she whispers to herself, weaving her fingers tightly together. 'I have to regroup with Zevran. See if he is all right'.  
  
After a swift nod to reassure herself with, Nella makes a roundabout turn on her heels and scans the street where she has just been Fade-Stepping, to turn and puzzle out which way she should go to return to the market. Preferably without bumping into those guards again, or being frizzled by her own lightning orb.  
  
That proves a... daunting task, for abusing the spell with such abandon has taken her out of the part of the city that she has familiarized herself with before her, Zevran's, and Isabela's little rescue operation. She must have skipped a vital turn... somewhere... And since she is now moving away from the harbour, not towards it, she does not even have the flashing blue belt of the sea to check her bearings against.  
  
Before long, the concentration in Nella's eyes shatters into uncertainty. Her pupils jerking to and fro, her brow furrowed almost in the same way as when she was a lost little Circle mage, she treads in an indecisive, tiptoeing gait up a narrow side lane, ducking in order not to hit her head on a massive sculpted windowsill that is jutting out so far that it almost presses into the wall of the building on the opposite side of the street. After exiting the lane, she takes a tentative turn, then another- but only ends up more lost.  
  
Had this happened ten years ago, she would have probably hugged her pounding head, slid down the nearest wall, and burst into tears. But even though her current predicament is all too similar to how she would blunder about as a fledgling Warden, she has grown rather more confident and resourceful since then... Hopefully.  
  
'Very well then,' she declares, pressing her palms together in a prayer-like gesture and breathing deeply through her nose.  
  
'Very well. It's not like I can ask the locals for directions... "Hello there, I am looking for an Antivan elf that has wrought havoc in your slave market"...'  
  
She asks this hypothetical question is the deliberately squeaky, childish voice of what is called an ingénue in Orlesian theatre - and thus cheers herself up quite a bit. When she goes on speaking to herself to gather her own thoughts, she does so while pacing energetically up and down the street and surveying her surroundings with a keen and focused gaze.    
  
'So... I will just have to... find an elevated point for a clear view of the city... Like a tree... Well, obviously this place does not have a lot of those... Oh! I know! A building! A nice tall building... Just got to perch myself on the dome like Isabela in her crow's nest, and figure out where the market is, and where the harbour is, and where in the name of Good King Al I am'.  
  
She makes a new succession of vigorous nods, happy to have come up with a plan - and promptly decides on a suitable building to climb. It's just one street corner away, tall and imposing even from what looks like its back door side, and crowned by an iridescent dome, enormous like the snow cap of a mountain.   
  
The dome itself is polished to a flawless (and rather precarious) smoothness - but when Nella throws back her head, blinking off tears as the sun glard slashes at her poor eyeballs, she makes out that in its very centre, there rises a jewelled spire, chiselled into the figurine of a dragon. Perhaps too small for a human to hold on to; but more than a sufficient perch for a bird. And it just so happens that Nella knows a little bit of magic that might be useful here.  
  
This magic was shared with her in the serene blue shade of one of their rare peaceful evenings, as she sat cross legged, mouth agape, so mesmerized that she did not even scratch at her throbbing mosquito bites, or roll over with a shriek when a chubby fuzzy moth floated in from the dusk to beat its wings at the glowing tip of her staff. This magic came from a Wilder witch, once cold and darkly dangerous like the bottomless bog holes in the unforgiving marshland where she grew up; and then, beginning to bloom like the very same marsh blooms, in tiny sparks of golden flowers nestled among the caps of grey moss, during its fleeting but verdant spring; faltering and unsure for the first time in her life; wondering if she should really dare feel grateful for having made a friend. This magic was hard-earned, and Nella uses it very sparsely... But right now, she us running out of ideas.  
  
Closing her eyes, she squares her shoulders and spreads her arms far out in a gigantic letter T. Her expression seeped in a dream-like serenity, she stands still - and listens. Past the bustling noises of the seaside city; past any sounds and echoes of sounds that her ears can catch. Past the reaches of Tevinter, past all borders carved into pristine nature by the hand of man. She listens - and hears the steady heartbeat of the Wilds, measuring the unhurried passing of time far, far to the south, where so many secrets still lie undiscovered underneath murky waters and in the labyrinths of immensely thick mossy tree roots; and where old magic brews and ages like heady wine, like it has been since the days when immortal elves walked the earth.  
  
That magic - the tiny dollop of it poured out for Nella by her unlikely friend Morrigan - bubbles within her chest, and then escapes through her flesh, in beams of rich gold glow, which chip her human body away like the northern sun did her barrier; and then mould a new form for her, small and light and feathery. A round, grey and brown sparrow, which back and forth across the pavement a couple of times, before taking wing.  
  
Morrigan likes turning into a raven - black as tar, sleek, elegant. Nella, on the other hand, has never gone before the forms of the most modest, unassuming birds and animals. But that's all right; she is still immeasurably humbled that she has been taught to shapeshift at all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I have ridden the wave of inspiration to a crucial point that I personally was really looking forward to writing. Maker alone knows if I will abandon this story again or not.

Oh, and there is one other difference between Nella's shapeshifting magic and Morrigan's - one that she has failed to properly account for. She has never been able to maintain her animal form for as long as her witch friend. A few seconds is the most she can last before exhaustion takes over and she has to lie down, the ebb of mana leaving her limp like a used-up floor rag.  
  
She manages to flutter up almost to the building's roof, true - but she is still rather far from the dragon figurine at the dome's summit when a sharp itch ripples through her sparrow wings. A sure sign that, any moment now, they will be shedding feathers and extending back into huge, clumsily flailing arms of a human. And if that happens when she is flitting through the air like this... Well, she would rather not think of her dear Zevran hurrying to be reunited with her, only to trip over her mangled body at the foot of some domed tower, crimson halo of blood around her head.  
  
Chittering shrilly in anguish, the little sparrow retraces the distance she has travelled with her rounded beady eyes - and spots the corner of a balcony, just a couple of feet below. Moving hastily to its side of the building, she chirps in relief: the balcony, though itself quite narrow, is hugging a very tall stained-glass Orlesian window, which has one of its sections welcomingly open. Probably to create a draught and help whoever lives in there escape the heat. Well, it is about to help a so-so shapeshifter escape a certain fall to her death!    
  
Mustering her last shreds of strength, just as she comes to the very verge of being smothered by that wet rag feeling (she can even taste the soggy fabric in her mouth, while the very first of her feathers start falling out, popping off her tightened, goosebump-covered skin), Nella flings herself through the window, into the cool darkness on the other side. An eruption of sparks before her eyes, a particularly strong surge of itching - and she finds herself on her hands and knees on the stone floor of some darkened corridor, very much human again.  
  
Groaning, crushed by mana depletion, Nella collapses to the ground, and presses her cheek against the soothingly cold... marble is it?  
  
It does not do to flop around like this in what could be some respectable household, or maybe even a place of  worship, given how much the building stands out among the rest on the outside - but Maker, shapeshifting is so... draining... And to add to that, there is a faint murmur of voices coming from the corridor's other end, the distance smooshing the separate words together into something very soft, very rhythmical, very soothing. Like the drowsy warble of a creek.  
  
And to almost any other person, this would have stayed true for as long as they decided to lounge about on the floor, steadying their breath and replenishing their energy. But to Nella's ear - the ear of a Grey Warden, attuned to the irresistible, luring call of the Blight - the voices are soon drowned out by something else. Something that makes Nella shudder and scramble (with a fair share of wobbling) back into an upright position. Something that heralds little good.  
  
It is unmistakable, hauntingly familiar, piercing enough to send her heart lurching to the pit of her stomach. A soundless, wordless song that she alone can discern in the flow of the tepid air; a song that carries memories of a dark, fleshy stream flowing, slow but unstoppable, through the Deep Roads, with torches flickering here and there in its midst like bursts of scorching flame breaking the crust of a cooling-down lava river, and with countless faces bobbing on its waves, flashing into view before they blend again into that menacing whole. Grotesque, skull-like faces, scarcely coated by a patchwork of moist necrotic flesh. Pupilless eyes, lodged into jagged sockets; rotten, uneven teeth gnashing; swollen veins, pulsing with the same black poison that flows through Nella's own body, diluted by living human blood, and lets her hear the song. Taint calling to Taint.  
  
'It can't be!' Nella gasps, mechanically reaching out into the dark to telekinetically pull her staff (which thunked down by her side when she transformed into a human) back into her hand.  
  
Her voice carries under the corridor's vaults with an odd echo, as though she were underwater - but nobody seems to get alerted by the sound of an intruder's presence. And judging by the way she frowns when she edges forward, pausing to swivel her head around after every step, and clinging on to her staff ever tighter, she does not know whether to be relieved or even more alarmed.  
  
'Can't be...' she keeps mumbling to herself, slowly approaching each of the many doors that line the corridor's sides and twisting the handles to see if she can pass through. All the doors so far turn out to be locked; when he efforts to push them open prove fruitless, Nella leans in with her ear against the keyhole... Not to eavesdrop - or rather, not to eavesdrop for... conventional sounds. Frowning so hard that the vertical fold between her eyebrows grows about a nail deep, never stopping to move her lips in bewilderment, she is interested, first and foremost, in flowing the Taint's song. And the moment she makes sure that it is not coming from behind the door that she is pressing at, she draws back and moves on.  
  
'Can't be... But... But Warden senses... Maker's breath, there is a darkspawn somewhere in here... Or... Or a person... people with the Blight? Or a Warden?'  
  
Her breath catches in her throat, and she tosses her head from shoulder to shoulder, so ferociously that her fringe of hair turns into a blur.  
  
'I swear, if Anders and Justice have run off to stir things up in Tevinter without telling... Oh!'  
  
She interrupts her own worried babbling, having come across the very first door in this corridor that is slightly ajar. And it is not this little discovery alone that throws Nella off-kilter: the song has abruptly grown stronger here, becoming palpable, material, visible; even to an outsider's eye. Visible in the tic of a delicately blue, lightning-shaped vein in Nella's temple; and in the dripping of sticky perspiration down her forehead and spasmodically contracting throat; and in the hoarse, ragged breaths that seem to claw their way through her quivering half-parted lips as she scrapes at the floor with her staff, attempting to readjust her hold of it in a way that will keep her from swaying.  
  
'Maker, I am out of shape,' she chides herself. 'Too much time chasing that cure, and not enough fighting actual darkspawn. But I've got this. I've got this'.  
  
Snatching up her mage weapon at an angle towards the floor (to keep its tip from making any more scraping noises), she pushes sideways through the open doorway, stomach sucked in, trying not to disturb the hinges in case they creak. Her vein is still pulsing, still dancing to the tune of the Taint's song - but she had collected herself enough to focus on stealth... And observation.  
  
For there is much to observe where the door has taken her to. It seems that Nella has wandered onto another balcony - this time, one that is overlooking a spacious auditorium, with a ceiling supported by crystal-encrusted columns that are chiselled in the same style as the dragon she saw on the building's dome. Serpents going jewelled serpents twist along the stone from top to bottom, encircling the columns in their sparkling jade coils, flashing their blank crystalline eyes, and even appearing to move a little in the shifting, muted glow of turquoise mage fire that dances lazily in the tall ornate sconces.  
  
Highlighted by the same fire - cold, so unlike the sun beyond these snake-adorned walls - are many, many faces, resting rather stiffly on the collars of silken robes, which seem heavy with lavish embroidery and have mostly been sewn into eccentric, asymmetrical shapes, with sharp triangles sticking out everywhere. Apart from these faces - almost all upturned and mask-like, with curling lips and unimpressed, half-lidded eyes - and over-the-top geometrical constructs, Nella also catches glimpses of ringed fingers, often with long, polished nails that make it clear how much their owners despise manual labour (a bit like the nails of some of those fancy customers in the slave market, but even bigger, sharper, the ones on the little finger hidden away in a special claw-like metal case, intricately carved and encrusted with gemstones to match the rings). The fingers drum against the arm rests of the robed people's seats, rising and falling languidly, while the eyes of the condescending masks roll upwards, measuring the figure on the balcony. The one who is giving them a speech. The one whose blood is singing to Nella.  
  
The Tainted speaker is standing with their back turned towards the southern mage that has accidentally become part of the audience, hidden away in the shadows. But they do not remain still; as they talk, they move around and make vigorous gestures that sometimes involve not only their hands, but also half of their upper body. And at one point, they turn enough for Nella to see their profile. Or probably, his profile.  
  
It looks to be a young man, sickly white and with deep bruised circles under his eyes. So, not a Warden then. A Blight victim, bless his poor soul.  
  
'No,' Nella mouths inaudibly. '"Victim" is not the right word for him'.  
  
For pale though he is, weak though he is, deafened by the same song as her though he is, he is holding up with the grace of a true orator. His spine is set into a rigid straight line, and his voice rings through the auditorium with a clarity and fervour that may not impress the robes below, but has certainly struck a cord within the hidden listener behind his back.  
  
'The Venatori claim that they want to bring back the Imperium of old - but their image of the supposedly "grand" realm that our ancestors once ruled is very, very one-dimensional. Their Imperium is not that of beautiful, vast cities with well-lit, clean streets; their Imperium is not that of secure road networks and bustling trade - their Imperium is that of rot and decay, of blood sacrifice, of corruption in the air and water, of precisely the kind of magic that makes the South distrust and spurn us. They do not want to nurture what is good about our home - they want to exacerbate what is bad, too blinded by lust for personal "glory" to see that they are thus bringing the whole world to ruin'.  
  
He makes another one of his sweeping gestures, letting his last words hang in the air for a moment. Down in the auditorium, a blonde woman in a blue gown beams proudly - and then glares at the man near hear, who has dared to yawn. Meeting that woman's eyes seems to bolster the speaker's resolve. He takes a drink of water, the ravenous greed of the song taking over for just a second as he makes a succession of pained gulps - but he trumps it down, still firm on his feet, and goes on,  seeking out that woman a few more times for moral support.  
  
'And that,' he says with assurance, 'That is not patriotism. That is not love towards our country, or our people. When you love someone - truly love someone...'  
  
Here, the song ripples through his voice again, and Nella winds herself up into a tense spring, ready to dart out of her hiding spot and catch him should he falter. But instead, he supports himself, leaning forward to clutch the balcony's railing. There is something tremulous tearful in his voice; though perhaps that is merely the song. Either way, whatever it is, it does not linger, and he finishes on a high note, prompting Nella to place her hand over her heart.  
  
'When you love someone, you do not stand idly by as they submerge into destructive darkness. No, instead you step forward, and pull them from the brink, and remind them that, apart from darkness, they also carry a light within their heart. That they have it in them to do what's right. And I believe that this is true of all of us gathered here. Of all of Tevinter. We have it in us. We can find the light, and hold on to it, and do right by the world. Reaffirm, once and for all, that we are not the same as the maleficars that, as the southern Chantry says, poisoned the Golden City. That we are not the same as the Venatori. That while we respect our ancestors, we know better than to repeat their mistakes. And the first step on this journey to redemption would be to support the southern Inquisition. Those valiant men and women are doing most noble work; I have seen first-hand how they face down demons, and heal the Veil, and reverse even the darkest of spells. With their Chantry bickering over trivial matters, with their nobles wary of anything unknown, the Inquisition is almost completely alone in opposing the Venatori. Who better to help them than us - the people who are more aware than anyone else that evil and corruption are by far not the only things that can come out of Tevinter? The people who actually live in this country - which to the southerners, is often little short of a simplistic bogeyman, as I soon learned during my travels in Orlais - the people who know this country, and love this country, and are perfectly equipped to kindle that light that the Venatori do not even notice. If we stand with the Inquisition, we will go down in history as a nation that saved the world, instead of one that blighted it. Please consider this, esteemed members of the Magisterium. And thank you for letting me speak to you today'.  
  
The blonde woman cheers; a few other listeners in the auditorium - Magisters! That's who they are! Actual Tevinter Magisters! - deign to give the young man a few lazy claps. A call to step from darkness into the light has fallen on mostly deaf ears, it seems. But Nella, for her own part, has made a very important decision, punctuating her thoughts with a small but resolute stomp on the marble floor.  
  
Nobody deserves to die of the Blight, and this young man least of all. It is high time she went back to her 'You get conscripted, and you get conscripted' routine.


	6. Chapter 6

For the tiniest fraction of a second - back in that morbid little market square, covering the tracks of his cariña and the escaping slaves - while he measures up his triangular-hooded opponent, who is tense like some oversized, geometrically sketched gatito before a pounce, claws dripping with blood-red magic sparks, Zevran wishes for cariña to return already, so that they could see the Adventure of the Slave Auction through side by side, like they have seen through every other adventure. Which there have been many. Oh so many.  
  
From the grim march to battle the Archdemon, as the sky over Denerim turned a deep crimson, and the shadows blackened and stagnated like dense marsh water, even though it was supposedly daytime. To the subsequent delves into the labyrinthine, heat-breathing bowels of the Antivan slums on the hunt for the well-hidden little (metaphorical, though not always) dominoes that would topple the higher ranks of the Crows like a shoddily woven nest.  
  
From the titanic struggle under the burdens of logistics and negotiations and other skull-splitting whatnots that came with running Vigil's Keep. To the first feverish, sleep-deprived weeks after the unexpected, miraculous birth of their son - their Regalo. Their Gift from the Maker or whoever else had decided that, while the Taint drains away the Wardens' fertility, some sliver of chance is still left (especially if one tries really, really hard).  
  
From all the wonders they experienced alongside their impossible, cherished Gift - such as the utter joy of making the very first wobbly yet curious step, of very thoroughly chewing up the very first toy, of determinedly shaping the little gurgles into the very first word (which was 'Knife!!!', much to cariña's alarm and Zevran's amusement). To leaving in search for a cure that would free the mind and body of his dear Warden, and all of her comrades, from the slithering black tendrils of the Calling. With Regalo, now a sharp-tongued, scabby-kneed preteen found stuck in the treetops more often than, again, un gatito, entrusted to the good Felsi, mother of his best friend Nugget.  
  
From the very beginning to this single moment. From the sunrise to sunset of every day. Every minute spent by her side has been an adventure. An adventure so exciting that Zevran is almost sad to be facing off this Venatori alone. But ah well, moping will not make their confrontation progress smoother. Zevran is certain that his cariña will get her part of the mission done faster than their dear King Alistair breaks into a blush; and then, they will leave this wretched, rotting city of slavers behind side by side and resume their quest for ancient secrets of the Blight, following the lead that was kindly shared with them by the lovely Morrigan.  
  
Zevran may still be daydreaming of his Nella (particularly scenes of them standing aboard Isabela's ship, heads tilted up to bask in the rays of the blaring oceans sunset), he is still perfectly capable of staying aware of the impromptu battlefield. And when the Venatori swats at the air with his magic-infused claws, a jet of scorching red shooting off towards Zevran, it takes him faster than a single heartbeat to roll to the side, so that the bolt of magic passes by him and arches downwards to scorch the pavement, without as much as grazing his cheek (his fabulous black cloak gets somewhat rumpled-up and imprinted with chalky swirls of dust from all that cartwheeling over the pavement; but an adventurer learns to make small sacrifices).  
  
His adversary is still huffing in disbelief over how disastrously he missed the target, when Zevran twirls lightly to his feet, with a fluid, practiced flourish, balances himself on tiptoe for a moment, as a dancer would, inhales steadily, and finally spins off into a whirlwind motion that smudges all contours of his figure, with only the flashes of his blades visible through the ceaselessly twisting blur.  
  
This may not be magic - just a single elven body launched with purpose at the enemy through sheer strength and finesse, each muscle straining to the limit and bared weapons turning into an extension of the circling arms - but the hurricane of blades still hits the Venatori with the shattering impact of the most destructive battle magic. A few well-timed lacerations, and the mage doubles down onto his hands and knees, gloved fingers clawing at the lopsided cobblestones among muddy, brownish trickles off blood mingling with dust.  
  
He is not dead, not yet; still breathing, each heavy huff ending in a gargle and then a whimper at the back of his throat. His ridiculous conical hood has slipped off, revealing the sweaty glaze over his ashen skin. The man is slipping away, and another slice of a dagger across his exposed throat would bring the process to a swift end. Uncompromising like the final inky dot rounding off the epilogue in a book. But somehow, Zevran realizes, as he takes a broad step back, that he is not ready to be the hand that places that dot at the end of another's life story. Not... Not quite.  
  
For the face revealed by the cast-off cone is far from what Zevran imagined it would be. Far from the harshly chiseled, icy masks of magisters, both real and immortalized in ever so many stone statues. Far from the heavily folded, snarling faces of slavers that he so enjoyed cleaving his blade across in the alienage all these years ago.  
  
No... It is a young face, frightened face, the face of a spindly, thin-necked boy that has been wrapped into these robes like a delicate butterfly in a gnarly, lumpy cocoon (and the breadth of his built, as Zevran now realizes, comes not from his natural girth but from the many layers of black flapping around him... perhaps the robes were even a hand-me-down from another Venatori).  
  
It is a face straight from Zevran's distant memories, which Nella has been helping him push back ever since he got entangled in their sticky, green-tinted web all over again while their little team was lulled into a vision-filled stupor at the dead end of her old Circle's smoke-filled corridor, where the sloth demon curled up, waiting, amid the drooping, oozing fleshy sacs that clung to the walls, and the mangled tin remains of the Templars that littered the floor.  
  
It is a face like countless over faces that looked up at a younger Zevran from the shadowy corners of the Crow barracks; a face snatched from rows upon rows of trembling, half-starved children, harvested young from the markets much like this one, and wrought into living weapons by the strikes of whips and the harsh lessons that took his own worn-out, broken heart and aching mind, hidden underneath the outer glamour of carefree humour and lavish lovemaking, so very long to unlearn.  
  
It is his own face. His face before he threw himself against the Wardens, before he met Nella, before he looked up at her as they walked away from that back alley in Denerim, while the silver ribbons of rain still lashed at Taliesin's corpse, and realized that there was something soft and vulnerable clenching within his chest that he had an almost primal fear of.  
  
Zevran has no logical explanation why he feels this way; why he recognizes his former self in this pale, golden-haired boy with a long, narrow face and angular cheekbones and ears that are faintly leaf-like, as those of good king Alistair. But... But nor did Nella have a logical explanation why she had decided to spare him, or their stoic Qunari friend Sten for that matter. She just did - and he intends to flow suit, even as the silence that fell over the square as he fought the Venatori is disturbed by the rumbling, pounding footfalls of more guards arriving on the scene, and by a hoarse voice that announced, its screech soaring over the heads of the crowd like a desert bird,  
  
'By order of Archon Radonis, the Venatori shall be brought in for questioning!'


	7. Chapter 7

Wounded though he is, the young man still registers the guards' outcry; and, slanting his sunken, glazed-over eyes in the direction where the summons came from, he breathes in through his teeth, the sound coming out like the scrape of a rake against gravel, and begins to heal himself.   
  
Zevran would be a fool not to expect that he will at least try to charge up those red flares of his again, once he is strong enough to sustain offensive spellcraft.   
  
Or maybe he will make use of his kneeling pose and trace a rune right at Zevran's feet: all he has to do is plant his palm against the dusty ground and let thread-thin pulses of magic spread from the imprint, branching off from one another and bending into curves and waves and bristling arrow points, until you would scarcely be able to see the pavement underneath the elaborate design, waiting like a hunter's snare until someone stumbles across the sizzling outer contour and sets off a thundering blast that will blind and stun and probably ruin your handsome visage with a streak of blisters from a mage fire burn. Zevran saw his cariña do that, more than once; she does love her glyphs, and watching her turn the battle's course head over heels when she appears to be overwhelmed is always so utterly satisfying (he would bet a bar of gold that she is doing the same right now, sowing confusion among the guards who chased after her).   
  
It would be less satisfying to end up the one being knocked unconscious or set on fire by a mage's glyph. But still, true to his intent, Zevran does nothing - except squat down so that his face would be on the same level as the Venatori's. And then, he waits.   
  
He waits for the threads of crisp-green light snake up the boy's forearms, golden sparks glinting here and there as they seep through the heavy black cloth; he waits for the clammy sheen to clear off his skin and for the colour to return to his face in air-light strokes of pink. He waits.  
  
He waits - and only makes a move when the new dispatch draws near to them, elbowing through the crowd, their weapons bobbing up and down like blobs of raw silver light in Zevran's peripheral vision. And what he does is so far from what his (now more or less conscious) adversary could have expected that the boy's eyes turn to unblinking saucers.  
  
He dives into the folds of his cape (which he will have to wash if he wants to make dramatic sweeps with it again), and produces a small flask - one of the many he carries with him - with coils of weightless, cloudy tufts of grey and purple licking against its sides. Grabbing the dumbfounded Venatori with one hand and pulling him to his feet (while he spluttering something barely coherent but probably along the lines of 'What?! You just stabbed me!'), Zevran tosses the flask on the ground at their feet with the other.  
  
With a burst of prickling white light, the glass shatters against the cobblestones, and the cloud locked within crawls free, stretching like (to continue with the simile of the day) un gatito that has packed himself into a vessel many, many sizes too small for him.   
  
And, indeed, just as a cat's, the cloud's underbelly is soft and warm, rubbing against the elf and the Venatori with an ingratiating slyness. In a single blink, it covers them whole, obscuring them from view of anyone who might be gawking at them from the market square, guards included.  
  
'The smoke screen won't hold for long, my friend,' Zevran warns the Venatori, still expecting him to summon his battle magic, and still remaining perfectly calm about it.  
  
'I suggest we seize the moment and make a most expeditious retreat. Do you happen to know that wondrously useful spell that propels one across great distances?'.  
  
'What are you plating at?' the boy mouths, eyeing Zevran wildly (ah, and there it comes; a new tinge of red glow pooling around his fingertips).  
  
'First, you ruin my... my very important mission... And then... You decide to...'  
  
'You did notice the guards,' Zevran reminds him, steadfastly meeting his gaze (while that spell remains uncast).  
  
'Your cult has not been officially embraced, my friend. So your choice is either to set aside our unfortunate duel, or to surrender to the Archon's men'.  
  
'It's not my cult, not really,' the Venatori mutters, suddenly sullen almost like a child that has been unfairly told off. 'But... Very well. Hold my hand, and I will Fade-Step away from here'.  
  
A flex of the gloved fingers, and the red glow fades. Zevran smirks softly in approval and does as the boy tells him - but not before carefully grinding the flask sharps into the square's dusty pavement with a forceful circular motion of his heel (which he makes look a little bit like a dance move for his new friend's amusement), and peppering it over with the contents of another flask that he detaches from his helpful belt.  
  
'Ash,' he explains to the boy, clasping his hand in his. 'Let these fine fellows think that we have tragically incinerated one another, hmm?'  
  
Quite despite of himself, the Venatori chortles - and presently, his amused face triples into a trailing blue blur, and Zevran's ears are violently punched by the whooshing air that he and his mage companion slice through at such a speed that he can almost swear he feels his eyelids clap wetly against his eyeballs.  
  
A most repulsive sensation. But it is soon gone, and, after a bit more of seeing triple, and then double, the world settles back into place, and it becomes apparent  the boy has not merely taken them away from the square; he has hurtled himself and Zevran straight through the gaping entrance of an abandoned building in some dead-end side alley or other.  
  
From the looks of the slanting, cobwebbed broken shelves at the back and the long front counter that is so densely covered with dust that it almost seems swathed in a grey downy comforter, this was once a store. Zevran has seen many forlorn, empty little nooks exactly like this one when exploring the city with his cariña; his guess would be that the owners were either driven out of business by slave owners who 'spared' the expense of paying their workers, or got so deep into debt that they had no choice but to leave their livelihood behind and become slaves themselves. Or perhaps a bit of both.   
  
To linger here would be both depressing and dangerous - but they do need a chance to catch their breath. And to make sure that the young Venatori has recovered from the assault of Zevran's daggers. So, without further ado, Zevran ducks into a dusty corner and fishes himself a nice catch of discarded wooden planks.  
  
'Let us inspect your wounds, first and foremost,' he declares, dragging the planks across to the entrance hole. 'Then, I hope it will not be too much trouble for you to hold these together with a barrier? So we can discuss the outcome of our lovely meeting undisturbed?'  
  
'I could just cast a barrier; no extra boards needed' the Venatori offers, rubbing a clear stripe on the counter for himself to sit on (which leaves his palms Qunari-grey) and wriggling out of his robes.   
  
Just as Zevran assumed, the boy is gangly and willowy-thin - another token of his elven blood, alongside with his face and ear shape. He wears his hair in a frizzling blonde bun at the top of his head, which suddenly unwraps into a long braid as he loosens the lace at the collar of his undershirt and feels himself up, green healing magic blooming again across his chest like the vines of a ghostly creeping plant.   
  
'Ah, but a mere barrier would attract more attention than a barrier that is shielded on the outside with wood,' Zevran reasons.  
  
The boy gives him a small, you-have-a-point nod of agreement and, once satisfied with the work of his own healing spell, slides off the counter and passes his hand over the planks, blue ripples coating the wood in the wake of his delicate brushing motion, as if he were facing a vertical pool of water.  
  
'You know an awful lot about magic for a rogue,' he says all of a sudden, glancing at Zevran over his shoulder.  
  
'My wife is a mage,' Zevran explains proudly. 'You may have seen her in action, at least out of the corner of your eyes, as she was freeing your slaves'.  
  
The boy makes a full turn towards him, his whole bearing turning so... brittle with anguish that Zevran pictures him shattering like a porcelain figurine.  
  
'I was supposed to set them free too!' he exclaims, voice quivering. 'I... I was supposed...'  
  
He chokes and grabs at his head in desperation.  
  
'Oh Maker... Creators... I don't... I can't... I can't keep this up much longer...'  
  
He is still rambling desperately to himself when Zevran hugs him around the shoulders, leads him back to the counter, where he has left his robes, whips the heap of cloth into the likeness of a bird's nest, helps the boy settle within (just as he is, stripped to a blood-spattered shirt and silly little underpants, and whimpering incoherently), and, climbing onto the counter by his side, says simply,  
  
'Start from the beginning'.


	8. Chapter 8

With Zevran's gaze upon him, intent but not intrusive (at least, he hopes so, lest he distress his unlikely new friend even further), the boy breathes in, passing the back of his hand over his eyes to wipe them dry, and clears his throat sheepishly.  
  
'Well... The beginning is... Rather pointless but...'  
  
He looks up at Zevran, who makes a little twirling gesture with his hand, encouraging him to keep talking.  
  
'My... My name is Feynriel,' the young Venatori says, swallowing.  
  
'I... You have probably noticed that I am not exactly human. My mother was a Dalish that... left her clan... And my... my human father.... he seduced and abandoned her...'  
  
Zevran quirks an eyebrow, attention captured.  
  
'What of your mother?' he asks, an unexpected gentleness breaking through his words in a pulse of warmth.  
  
'She... uh... She's back with the Dalish now,' Feynriel says. 'She raised me as best she could... Which must have been... trying... I was... an angry child. My magic was giving me a lot of trouble, and... growing up in the slums of Kirkwall, where the Templars were the worst of the worst... the trouble only increased tenfold'.  
  
'I can imagine,' Zevran whispers, while the image of the stumbling, wild-eyed Knight Commander brandishing her crystalline blade against a lightning-split sky surfaces before his narrowed eyes.  
  
'I try to run away from home... But it only led me into a slaver trap... I tried to fit in at the Circle... But it only gave me nightmares and almost turned me into an abomination...' Feynriel recounts bitterly, bending his fingers to list his misfortunes.  
  
'Then, the Champion helped me fight the demons off...'  
  
'Ah, she is good at doing that, is she not?'  
  
Despite the gravity of Feynriel's tale, he cannot resist a fond chuckle. Though brief, his meetings with the Champion of Kirkwall also resulted in most thrilling adventures. The ability to drag one's companions onto fantastical escapades, in the waking world and in the Fade, must run in the Amell family: for the lovely Lady Hawke is Nella's long-lost cousin - and an elf-blood like Feynriel, the fruit of a torrid affair between a (reportedly) cheeky ginger elven apostate and the runaway Amell heiress.  
  
Feynriel also distracts himself from the darker memories with a soft half-smile, and then goes on.  
  
'The Champion did all she could to get me out of Kirkwall... So I made my way here... Where I thought I could be a free man... Learn to control my magic... And - and I did... For a while...'  
  
He shakes his head mournfully from side to side.  
  
'I found a lady magister... well, magister's wife... who knew what to do with my... abilities... She studied the Fade, and I have always had a certain way with... shaping it... which is apparently very rare... For a just a little bit, I had a roof over my head... A patient teacher that didn't... secretly plot to enslave me or make me Tranquil... Fellow apprentices to befriend...'  
  
'A family,' Zevran finishes for him, not even certain when or how that word managed to slip off his lips.  
  
'Yes, I suppose so,' Feynriel sighs. 'But then... Then my mentor died. Killed by darkspawn. On some sort of... family trip gone wrong. And that little magic homeschool she had set up... It all fell apart. All her other apprentices went back where they came from... But me - I didn't have a place to go back to. It was a couple of years before the mage templar war... So the Champion's letters brought... really frightening news of what was going on in Kirkwall. I would rather seek out my old demons again than return to that Circle'.  
  
Zevran gives Feynriel a hum of approval, which he seems to appreciate.  
  
'There was also my mother's clan...' he continues, after exchanging another glance with his listener.  
  
'But I had no idea where they were... And they had not been very welcoming before - because of my...'  
  
He cringes and mimes quotation marks.  
  
'My "shemlen blood". But I did have to leave. Because... Things got somewhat complicated'.  
  
'Complicated?' Zevran echoes. In his experience, this word often alludes to affairs of the heart (and he even used it himself in that sense, when trying to sort through the tangled ball of unuttered screams that whirred through his head when he realized that he might be falling in love with his darling Warden). But what Feynriel alludes to is rather more... morbid.  
  
'My mentor also had a son,' the boy elaborates. 'We didn't talk much, as he mostly lived in Orlais... But he seemed a decent sort. Always had something kind to say to me and the other apprentices. He... he lived through that darkspawn attack, but became sick with their Taint. And my mentor's husband was so bent on finding a cure for him that...  That he came to terrify me. I tried to talk to both of them... father and son... in their dreams a couple of times, to use my abilities to alleviate their nightmares... For my mentor's sake... But it turned out that I had bitten more than I could chew... I think the poor man was going mad'.  
  
Zevran nods in sombre understanding. He and his cariña have sworn to never give up, and what with Morrigan's insight, they might even have hope to succeed - but seeking a cure for the Blight has often felt like trying to pry a hole through a brick wall with your bare hands, scratching and clawing till blood seeps under your throbbing fingertips in crimson crescents, and yet the solid mass still refuses to budge. The task must seem even more pointless, even more excruciating, when you do nor have your beloved by your side to help you search. To imagine Nella dead, and little Regalo being... No. He must not succumb to this tactless intruder of a thought. He must not - and he will not.  
  
'So you left your mentor's household,' he steers the conversation on.  
  
'Yes... I... I drifted for a while... All alone... Without a purpose... Seeing more and more of the side of Tevinter that made me... almost understand the Templars back in Kirkwall... Until - until I found a new mentor. Lady Calpernia. Leader of the Venatori. She sought me out... Said that my talent would be of use to her cause... That she was a former slave herself, that she understood how harsh and unjust the world can be... and wanted to change that... I have been trying my best to repay her for her kindness... To help her buy out slaves and set them free... To train so that one day she might present me before the Elder One... That's some kind of... incredibly powerful magister that they all serve... But...'  
  
Here, his voice shatters again.  
  
'Lady Calpernia may be driven by a noble purpose, but most of the other Venatori... They are almost living pictures of the stereotypes we have of Tevinter in the south... They do monstrous things... Sacrifice people for blood rituals; grow red lyrium out of living flesh; steal and murder their way all across the south... for the sake of some dusty old artifacts... I don't know if I can return to that... to them... especially since I have lost the slaves...'  
  
'You have not lost them,' Zevran smiles. 'They are hurrying towards a Rivaini ship that will carry them safely out of Tevinter even as we speak... Incidentally...'  
  
He bites mischievously into his lower lip.  
  
'How do you fancy a little sea voyage?'  
  
Ah, he cannot wait to introduce the boy to his beloved Nella. She has always had a weakness for adopting people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feynriel's actual Tevinter mentor was a man, and certainly not in any way related to the Alexius family, but shhhh.


	9. Chapter 9

Had Nella known that, at this very moment, Zevran  is musing fondly over her habit to take distressed strangers under her wing, she would probably have gotten flustered almost beyond the ability to breathe. Because stomping on the floor and telling herself that she must step in is all well and good, but... But, just like when she decided to shapeshift, she has not really thought things through further than the initial burning, impulsive flash that bolted, unstoppable, overpowering, through her mind, blocking out, at least for a short while, even the determination to catch up with her cariño.  
  
She may have shed the wilting petals of the bumbling Circle wallflower that she once was (word-mixing, furniture-hitting, and so awkward that the only two people who thought her worthy of more than mockery were equally bumbling: her timid, the least blood-magey blood mage of a childhood friend, and the green Templar recruit, whom she was unknowingly terrified of) and may have grown into a daring adventurer and rescuer of slaves... But part of that wallflower is still within her, still curled up somewhere under her new sun-kissed, travel-hardened look. It lurks behind her huge, unchanged eyes; and in occasion, it raises its wobbly, lilting head, leaving her incapable of doing anything save for dismally mixing up her words and accidentally hitting the furniture.  
  
And - just her luck! - this is exactly what happens to her now. She has shuffled clumsily back into the Magisterium corridors and, after taking a few blind turns here and there, has found herself flattened against the wall like a very anxious starfish clinging on to the side of a pirate ship like Isabela's.   
  
She has had to hastily conjure a barrier for blending in with the shadows (and has even gone as far as to suck her stomach in, for extra stealthiness) so as not to draw the attention of the robed crowd that is pouring out of the previously locked doors like a slow, broad stream in the middle of the night: rippling, whispering, black and purple and livened in places by streaks of faint glimmers, as the scarce light that hits their jewellery and the embroidered hems of their blowing, bell-shaped sleeves.   
  
The meeting must have been adjourned for recess, and the magisters are filing out to... Get a snack? Do a quick blood ritual to stretch themselves? Summon a couple of slaves to help them use the bathroom (because no way they are capable of doing that all on their own, with so many elaborate, many-tiered fabric pyramids sticking out over their shoulders and along their spines and around their belts)?  
  
Not that it matters too much. Wherever they are all going, that poor young man with the Blight has clearly exited the auditorium somewhere among them, because, for one thing, Nella never saw him leave through the same door that she used to take a sneak peek at him; and for another, she does catch inklings of the Taint's call in the heart of this torrent of glitter-touched dark fabric and millstone-heavy gemstones and upturned sour faces with upside-down smiles to rival those of Orlesian tragedy masks.   
  
The unheard song is intermittent, punctuated by the hissing murmurs of actual, audible voices that belong to men and women of flesh and blood, and by the throb of the powerful magical aura that encases every magister, often red-hot and congealing into sharp, hardened clots like they were walking inside invisible dragon eggs with scaly shells.   
  
The son ebbs and flows, bouncing on the waves of the crowd's stream, and Nella cannot quite grasp at it - not as firmly as she could when the young man was delivering the speech, separated from the others, facing the magisters rather than mingling with them. It seems nigh on impossible that she might find him like this, and the harder Nella tries to listen, to scry, to close her eyes and hold her breath and desperately shove all the sounds of the bustling Magisterium into the background so that the song might ring loud and clear, the more helpless and wallflower-like she feels.  
  
She should have gone with Plan A. Jumped out of the shadows and nabbed him while he was still in that box. But no, she had to discard that plan before it was even fully formed, mentally slapping herself with a multitude of 'What-ifs', each like a ruler in a teacher's hand. What if he does not understand that she wishes to help him? What if her sudden appearance overwhelms him, her Taint calling out to his? What if he has a family that he needs to consult first, before she whisks him off to become a Warden?  
  
These appeared to be important questions at the time - but now she might never know the answer to them. Now, while she is milling about, plagued by indecision and the fear of being noticed by the magisters, the poor young man might slip past her without her even knowing. Although... Wait.  
  
Still stuck in her starfish imitation (she wonders if she'd look less stupid if she had shapeshifted into one), Nella cranes her neck, an expectant prickle lifting up the hairs at its back.  
  
The crowd has begun to thin, which has just allowed two figures - very, very distinct figures - to eel out of the dwindling stream of robes, one leading the other under the arm into a quieter corner of the corridor. And while they pass by Nella, who edges along the wall in order not to lose sight of them, the song abruptly peaks to a new crescendo, hammering all other noises down and leaving them in a meagre pile of debris that Nella has to feebly sort through, weakened by the crushing thunder of the song against her temples, before she can make out what these two people are saying to one another.  
  
'You were astounding up there, Felix,' that is the blonde woman speaking, the only person in the audience who gave the Blighted orator more than a half-sleepy clap. 'Don't let those musty old men fool you. They looked so displeased because, had the Archon not treated the Venatori as a threat to his power, they would have publicly flocked end masse to lick the Elder One's heels. Just because they are not ready for the truth, does not mean you weren't right to say it. You were brave to face them all like this... You deserve your own statue!'.  
  
'And I might... qualify for it... very soon...' the young man - the source of the song - jokes in a slurring, strangled voice. 'It's dead men who get... statues... after all...'  
  
If Nella's very bone marrow is boiling because of her proximity to him, he must be feeling the same, just as she feared... And what makes it even worse is that his Blight is clearly entering into its very final stages. If Nella does not step forward, this fine mind that produced such a thoughtful, inspired speech will soon be dulled, melted down, losing its defined edges like a bar of sculpted soap after many days of use, till nothing is left but the senseless gargles of a milky-eyed ghoul. Nella has to make her presence known, to explain... But - but cutting into a heartfelt conversation between two friends would be awfully rude, wouldn't it? She will... She will wait just the tiniest while longer. Until they are finished.  
  
'Oh, my dear, I am so sorry,' the woman breathes, looking sincerely into Felix's dimming, bruised eyes. 'You... You won't be staying for the second half of the session, I hope? You need to get home and rest'.  
  
Felix makes a listless motion with his head that is probably meant to be a nod.  
  
'Thank you... Mae...' he mumbles. 'I have a ca... carriage waiting outside'.  
  
'And I will help you get to it. Hold on tight,' Mae smiles at him. And, while Nella mutely opens her mouth and then flaps it shut, like a regular fish instead of a starfish this time, the two figures vanish in a whirl of bright, squarish blots of magic, which slightly resemble autumn leaves swept up by the wind.  
  
At long last (when it is too late! Typical!), Nella tears away from the wall and, no longer bothering with stealth as the last of the magisters have left the corridor by now, gestures wildly, with her arms bent in the elbow, in Felix and Mae's wake. They have teleported! Teleported away! And she does not know where! All because of her dread of being an interloper! Ugh, what will she do now?! Turn into a sparrow and get down into the street the way she came - and then what? Chase after every carriage till she senses the Blight inside? Or... forget all about this detour and try to meet up with Zevran, as she was meaning to do in the first place? Abandon Felix to the Blight - and nonchalantly return to seeking the very cure that might have helped him too?  
  
The questions - no, accusations - dance ferociously to the drumming rhythm of her heart, which, since she has indeed shifted back into a sparrow, has shrunk into a a fluttering lump, trapped within a poofy downy chest, and beating much, much faster than the heart of a human.   
  
Who knows, it might ha e even burst, under the joint strain of Nella having to sustain her feathered form and berating herself the whole time. But thankfully, the downward glide out of an open balcony (Nella cannot be sure if it's the same one; she just darted towards the first rectangle of daylight) proves much easier than the journey to the building's top. Catching a helpful gust of wind with her tiny wings, the frustrated little sparrow circles among some chiselled, square-sided columns that she does not recall passing before, and, with a soft bump shaking her from head to toe, straightens up into a blinking, a bit weak-kneed human at the top of a spacious flight of stairs, broad enough for a dragon to crawl onto (and who knows, maybe dragons did crawl here once, judging by the way some of the many steps have been split by cracks).   
  
The stairs lead down into the street, where, to Nella's relief, no-one seems to have noticed the golden beams that, just a moment ago, burst with no warning out of an innocent tiny feathery floof and then moulded into a woman's silhouette. She guesses that living among magisters has made the common folk of Tevinter quite desensitized to sudden displays of arcane power, shapeshifting included. And on the other end of this imposing structure, is an arched door - the Magisterium's front entrance, no doubt - also broad enough for a dragon, and bearing a colossal marble panel along the top.   
  
Curving in line with the door's contours like an ornate frame, the panel is woven together from numerous sculpted tree branches, each sprout ending with a single flat leaf, with angular letters slashed across it, spelling out names and dates. Similar lettering, as Nella discovers when she throws back her head in silent fascination, decorates the very top of the panel. It's in old Tevene, of course, but Nella has been learning it bit by bit on her latest journeys with Zevran - can't well look for deep lore on the Blight in Tevinter libraries if you don't know Tevene, can you? - and the inscription is straightforward enough for Nella to make sense of it.  
  
THESE ARE THE BLESSED ALTI, DESCENDANTS OF THE DREAMERS, BENEVOLENT RULERS OF THE PEOPLE OF TEVINTER.  
  
Ooh, that makes sense – it did occur to her that the pattern looks rather like a genealogical tree! So these are all the bloodlines of Imperium's highborn families, proudly put on display over the entrance to the Magisterium, complete with names and birth and death dates. The branches only depict several generations, though, perhaps because the panel does not have enough space to fit in the family of each and every magister since the dawn of time. Nella wonders at the back of her mind, a bookworm's instincts taking over for a moment, whether the design gets somehow refreshed with magic every few decades. That does sound like a Tevinter thing to do, doesn't it? And in the meanwhile, the full version of the tree is likely recorded in some grand book or other, similar to the Memories in Orzammar, only with less lyrium-chiselling.  
  
A very curious thing to gawk at, this tree; and she could actually put it to use. If Felix gave a speech in front of the magisters, he ought to be highborn, right? So if she just... finds his first name here... She will know his house's name - and with that knowledge, she can just ask the passersby where such and such noble family lives. While hopefully not crossing paths with her guard friends again.  
  
All right then. She rests her hands on the small of her back, which has begun to ache with all that bending backwards, and begins to scan the leaves corresponding to Felix's generation (it's hard to tell, the poor soul being so ravaged by the agony of fighting the Taint, but she'd say he is about twenty-six to twenty-eight years old).  
  
She almost misses it - but she does spot one matching leaf with FELIX carved across it. For whatever reason (probably quite sad, she says to herself with a little jolt in her chest; maybe he was disowned, like Aunt Leandra, or born out of wedlock), the inscription is less clear than elsewhere on the tree: it looks as if the letters have been rubbed down and then clumsily traced back onto the leaf again.   
  
Well, whatever made Felix's family angry with him at some point, they forgave him (again, like Grandfather Aristides, whom neither Nella herself nor her cousins Summer and Bethany ever met, forgave Aunt Leandra). And since he is the only Felix of the right age, this has to be the noble house Nella is looking for. Which is... which is... Ah, found it!  
  
House Alexius.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That bit about the magical family tree bas relief over the Magisterium's entrance was completely pulled out of my ass, sorry!


End file.
